Hello, I’m Xianmin, a programmer and your technical butler.
Living in the countryside, unemployed for two years, making my own way - here’s my weekly self-help journal.

This Week’s Self-Help Actions

Let me share some interesting projects:

Enterprise Spreadsheet Automation

Extracting information from spreadsheets, downloading attachments to specified locations, compressing, and updating spreadsheets.

Using Node.js & TypeScript.
In previous years, type annotation was the most troublesome part of writing TypeScript.
With AI, the efficiency of writing TypeScript has improved tremendously.
Programs written in TypeScript are more robust and easier to maintain.

From my experience, AI remains in an assistant role - I must understand every step it takes to avoid being led astray.

Automa Automation Script

This was a requirement from a returning client - automating resume submissions to recruitment websites.

This task was quite time-consuming because AI couldn’t help much; everything had to be manually located and debugged.

There’s quite a market demand for automation scripts, as each person has different operation processes requiring customized solutions.
I might take on more of these types of orders in the future.

For repetitive operations, we should let machines help us complete them automatically.

Vue to React Conversion

This is another example where understanding AI’s actions is crucial.

Clients use AI for conversion, but when they don’t understand React code and can’t get it running, they’re stuck.

Some say AI will replace programmers, but from what we see now, complete replacement isn’t possible.
However, it can compress five days’ work into one day, or perhaps what used to require five people can now be done by one person.

This benefits freelance programmers like me.
Previously, a two-day job priced at ¥1000 would be rejected by clients as too expensive.
Such orders couldn’t be closed - programmers needed time, while clients had insufficient budgets.
But now it only takes two hours, priced at ¥200, which clients can accept.
So in my view, our potential market for orders has broadened.
However, from an employment perspective, there might be fewer positions, and even higher requirements.

WangEditor-Based Secondary Development

This is a failed case.

The client initially said it was fixing two bugs.
After accepting the order, I discovered it was an experimental project, mainly focusing on secondary development of WangEditor, a rich text editor.

The requirements seemed simple on the surface, but in practice, it required diving deep into WangEditor’s source code.
After spending two hours studying the source code, I told the client it would take much more time.
Then I learned the client was an intermediary who had transferred the order to me.
Sigh, when you can’t communicate directly with the end client, communication becomes difficult, and I had to eventually refund.

This Week’s Income

Completed 8 orders, totaling ¥1410.
Two of these were from returning clients.
Thanks to all the bosses who supported me!

Why do many people face difficulties after unemployment? A major reason is the lack of their own client resources.
When I previously ran a youth hostel, nearly 30% of annual turnover came from regular customers.
But after transitioning back to programming, the hostel client resources became mostly unusable, and I had to start over.

Client relationships need to be accumulated, and trust requires time and collaborative cases to deepen.

Currently, I don’t have many regular clients, and I’m still learning and imitating - for instance, adding clients’ contact information so they might think of me when they have future needs.

Closing Words

If you encounter any computer-related technical issues in your life, feel free to scan the QR code below for free consultation.